Ya keep talkin' like that and you'll find yerself under the same sort of proscription as Amos, pilgrim.

But right now I gotta go git purtied up fer a gala eve'ng with the Gov' nur's wife and a Poo-litzer Prize winnin' author an' some dude from the Nashunal EN-dowment fer the Arts an' folks like those. Hell's bells, I even gotta leave ma shootin' iron at home. Ah asks ya, what's this here world a-comin' ta?

I'm not sure that Amos will return from "Getaway" if he made it there at all. It's not just all of those accidents, either. I have a feeling that he will be kidnapped by a gang of crazed "biker chicks" who will hold him in durance vile as the object of their perverted lusts and Someone Else will be posting as Amos to allay our suspicions. Eventually the Amos we know will be lost to us, another victim of young women in spandex shorts, fingertipless gloves and weird, brightly colored helmets.

So if anyone posts as "Amos" I suggest that we have them prove that they are the REAL Amos and not an impostor. Maybe the poster should show us "his" belly-button scar or birthmark or something.

Helluva good idea, Rap. I'm for it. Let's "hold his feet to the fire" as the saying goes...

We'll soon know if it is the real Amos or not, because he will have to reach the dizzying heights of bafflegab, bilgeroar, and sesquipedalian blathertwaddle which only Amos is the true master of. If he can't do it...well, then we'll know the score.

Hmmm...he usually communicates to those around him by grunts and wordless gestures, some of which are quite rude. I think short grunts would qualify, but nothing else. Of course we DO run the risk of his communicative ability atrophying, but I'll chance it if you will.

Well, Amos ain't back yet. I guess he got kidnapped by them biker chicks and is being held in a super dee-luxe penthouse high above Baltimore, subjected to lascivious and degenerate acts that would embarrass the Devil his own self, and his precious bodily fluids drained away until he is only a wisp of his former shelf. Yeah, if anyone posts claiming to be Amos that "person" had be ready to prove it.

I didn't say I was recovered. It's like decompressing from dream-time. "What a strange, strange dream it's been! And you were there, too, Aunt Em, and you, and you...".

I am sorry I did not study your fatuuous and doltish contributions made during my absence, and thus have ignored the arbitrary and excessively dogmatic constraints you invented as asubstitute for what ordinary people call simple cognitive ability.

Stilly, thanks for digging up that one unflattering picture. I believe there will be more forthcoming as various other phtogoraphers step forward with their labors.

I am trembling with apprehension concerning Genie's QUickTIme captures of segments from Saturday night. I got two hours' sleep Friday, because I wanted to be up for breakfast. I also got up for breakfast on Sunday, on three hours' sleep, and on Monday, with perhaps four. So I have been in Recovery.

It was hard over the weekend to think about Getaway - though there was some compensation; spent saturday at a ren-faire; sang a lot with friends ; both at the faire and afterwards at a local session. Met a rennie who grew up in the Portsmouth area - he says he was a local at the Press Room - so we chatted about that. He did some great shanties at the session.

No, it was just that Wincing Devil and I did not happen to cross trails in many places. The Getaway is blessed with four large gathering rooms and half-a-dozen smaller ones that act as the common areas for each of the cabins sprinkled through the adjacent woods. Consequently you can spend the whole weekend not running into someone unless you run into each other at breakfast.

Well, I have to admit to serious doubts as to whether that is the real Amos, Rapaire.

A superficial glance at this following excerpt would seem to suggest that it could be the real Amos...

"I am sorry I did not study your fatuuous and doltish contributions made during my absence, and thus have ignored the arbitrary and excessively dogmatic constraints you invented as asubstitute for what ordinary people call simple cognitive ability."

The word "doltish", for instance, just screams "AMOS!", doesn't it? The whole sentence concluding in the phrase "simple cognitive ability" simply reeks of Amos's form of pretentiously elitist and condescending quasi-intellectual bafflegab and bullroar.

However...and it's a big however....would Amos mispell the world "fatuous" by putting an extra "u" in it???? Surely not! Would Amos forget to leave a space between the words "a" and "substitute"??? Heaven forfend!

No, I think that it is not Amos we are dealing with here at all, but some scurrilous imposter. The real Amos has been spirited away to some hideous fate and has been replaced by a paid Republican saboteur. You watch. In a few days he'll be making fatuous and ill-advised statements about the presidential campaign, all of them cunningly designed to destroy people's confidence in Barack Obama.

Oh, the humanity! When will the REAL Amos return to our collective bosom??????????

Indeed, little hack, you are so carried away by the sound of your own voice that you have departed your analytical senses. One look at my posting history will show you that double letters, missed spaces and other bizarre Errors of the Thumb are quite routine. Clearly, you are over-anxious to make your case.

But rest assured, I do not hold this against you. After all, you did not get to the Getaway. Had you done, you would have had a very different frame of mind, I assure you.